Judge tells of Sheffield's `help'

Meeting at airport with Bonds' trainer prompts letter to MLB

April 07, 2006|By Jim Baumbach, Tribune Newspapers: Newsday.

ANAHEIM — As much as Gary Sheffield wants to separate himself from Barry Bonds and the BALCO mess, more damaging evidence emerged Thursday, and it potentially could be used against the Yankees outfielder in baseball's steroids investigation.

A federal judge from Idaho sent a letter last month to Commissioner Bud Selig detailing a random conversation with then-Bonds trainer Greg Anderson in a Minnesota airport in 2002. The letter says Anderson told the judge he had been sent from California to Minnesota by Bonds to "help" Sheffield, who had been "struggling."

A Major League Baseball spokesman confirmed Thursday that Selig received the letter last month and gave it to George Mitchell, the former senator recently named to head MLB's investigation into steroids.

Sheffield's attorney, Rufus Williams, declined to comment. Bonds also declined to comment Thursday after the Giants' home opener.

The story was first reported Thursday by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, the San Francisco Chronicle reporters who wrote "Game of Shadows," the book focusing on Bonds and his alleged use of steroids.

The chance meeting between Anderson and Larry Boyle, chief U.S. magistrate judge in Boise, Idaho, occurred on a shuttle at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in June 2002.

Boyle, who also declined to comment Thursday, was intrigued by the brown liquid Anderson was drinking, so he asked him about it. Anderson explained his connection to Bonds.

"When your friend and best client asks you to help his friend, you do it," he said, according to Boyle.

Boyle also wrote in his letter to Selig that Anderson told him he planned to "reserve the hotel exercise facility and work privately with Sheffield on body mechanics, weights and also take a blood or urine sample, test it to determine if his body chemistry is what it should be and then give him nutritional supplements."

Boyle first sent his recollection of the conversation, along with a copy of his plane ticket as proof of date, to the United States attorney prosecuting BALCO in 2004.

When word started to trickle out last month that baseball was considering doing an internal investigation, Boyle sent the letter and plane ticket to Selig.

"It appears reasonable to conclude that Mr. Bonds sent Greg Anderson to at least one of his MLB friends, Gary Sheffield, for whatever services he was rendering to professional athletes at that time," the letter states.

When Selig announced the independent investigation last month, it was stated that it would look back to when the league's first drug policy was established in September 2002. Boyle's exchange with Anderson, however, took place three months earlier.

When the Braves arrived in Minnesota for their mid-June series against the Twins, Sheffield was hitting only .258 with nine home runs and 28 RBIs. In the two games after Anderson's arrival, he went 4-for-6 with a double and a home run.